Noah Schnapp was cast as Will Byers in August 2015.[1][2] Schnapp was promoted to series regular for the second season in October 2016.[2] Schnapp was revealed to be returning for the third season in a main role by February 9, 2018.[3] The idea of having Will communicate with Joyce via lightbulbs was inspired by 1980s films, including Poltergeist.[4] In terms of the narrative in the third season, Levy said the season would be less about Will, saying, "We're not going to put Will through hell for a third season in a row. He'll be dealing with stuff, but he won't be at rock bottom... We're [going to be] dealing with forces of evil that are new."[5]
Will, the younger brother of Jonathan Byers and the son of Joyce Byers and Lonnie Byers, is a shy, kind, and timid boy. He is often bullied at school, and is called homophobic slurs by classmates and his father Lonnie, who lives elsewhere and rarely visits. In his, Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, and Lucas Sinclair's Dungeons & Dragons party, Will is the cleric, but later occasionally plays the role of Dungeon Master; he is referred to as "Will the Wise". In November 1983, he vanishes somewhere near "Mirkwood" after encountering a monster that escaped through a rift to the "Upside Down", an alternate dimension discovered by the Hawkins Laboratory scientists.[6] He is presumed dead, and a funeral is held for him. Will begins communicating with Joyce through lightbulbs, so Joyce arranges a setup so Will can "talk" through the lights next to letters to create sentences. When Jim Hopper and Joyce venture into the Upside Down and find him unconscious, they revive him with CPR and bring him back to the real world, but he still has side effects from his time in the alternate dimension, including a slug emerging from his mouth and visions of the Upside Down.
Will is harassed by local residents, who dub him "Zombie Boy" after apparently returning from the dead due to a hoax orchestrated by the people from Hawkins Laboratory. He has regular appointments with Dr. Sam Owens, who is examining any potential links Will may still have with the "Upside Down"; Will has regular visions of the Upside Down and a looming monster watching him. Owens diagnoses Will with PTSD. After one of these visions, he confides in Mike, who in turn reveals he is attempting to contact Eleven. Dustin shows the group a slug-like animal he found and named D'Artagnan, and Will realizes he heard it during one of his visions. Joyce's boyfriend Bob tells Will to "face his fears", not knowing what these fears actually are. When Will attempts to confront the monster, he is possessed by the Mind Flayer from the Upside Down. Will is found and woken up, but he acts strangely: scribbling the underground tunnels of Hawkins endlessly on paper after paper and demanding the house be kept cold. The next day he has a vision of Hopper trapped in the tunnels and Bob discovers what Will's drawings mean. Hopper is saved by the group, but scientists from Hawkins Lab set the tunnels on fire, causing Will to collapse and convulse in agony. Will has memory loss from the experience, and Dr. Owens refuses to destroy the tunnel as it would kill Will. Will instructs the scientists to head to a specific spot he cannot see, but it is revealed that the Mind Flayer is controlling him and has led everyone into a trap. Will is sedated to halt the Mind Flayer and rescued from the lab. He is able to communicate with the group through Morse code. Eventually he is freed from the Mind Flayer through the efforts of his mother, brother, and Nancy Wheeler, who burn the Mind Flayer out of him, a deduction they surmised after comments Will made about wanting to stay cold. He then goes to the Snow Ball while the Mind Flayer still watches him and his friends.
Will discovers he still has a link to the Upside Down and privately senses the Mind Flayer's presence. He grows upset with his friends for being in relationships and abandoning their childhood hobbies, such as D&D. He has a fight with Lucas and Mike when they make fun of him trying to play D&D, and he and Mike argue outside of Mike's house, leaving visibly hurt. Will looks at pictures of his friends and him dressed as Ghostbusters before destroying "Castle Byers". Will senses a possessed Billy and Heather attack the latter's parents and he realizes that the Mind Flayer is still alive. Will reveals his connection, and the group theorize that Billy is possessed and trap him in a sauna to discover the truth. Billy escapes and attacks them before fleeing when Eleven nearly subdues him. They later save Steve, Robin, and Dustin at Starcourt Mall. The Mind Flayer attacks and is later defeated by the group. At the end of the season, Will moves out of Hawkins with his mother, brother and Eleven after giving away his Dungeons & Dragons set to Erica Sinclair.
Will now lives in Lenora, California with Joyce, Jonathan, and Eleven, who is bullied by other students at their school. Mike comes to visit Eleven for spring break; Eleven claims she is living happily, but Will confronts her over her dishonesty. Will and Mike witness Eleven assaulting Angela, her primary bully, after which Will confides Eleven's despair to Mike. Eleven is arrested but soon intercepted by Dr. Owens, who takes her to a research facility in Nevada to participate in a project called "NINA" that is aimed at restoring her powers. Will joins Mike, Jonathan, and Argyle (Jonathan's friend) in a search for Eleven, while evading the pursuit of the U.S. Army. Suzie, Dustin's girlfriend, helps them find the NINA project's coordinates. Before they reach Eleven, Will shows Mike his painting depicting him and his friends fighting a dragon together; Will claims the painting was Eleven's idea, but then silently breaks into tears, indicating his romantic love for Mike. Eleven overpowers the Army forces as her friends arrive to rescue her. Jonathan, who senses that there is something unspoken that Will is going through, later assures Will that he is loved and promises to be there for him. Will, Mike, Jonathan, and Argyle help Eleven telepathically fight Vecna through an isolation tank. Upon returning to Hawkins, Will feels the Upside Down's presence return right as the dimension begins to infiltrate Hawkins.
Will remains in the quarantined ruins of Hawkins, living in the Wheeler household along with Joyce and Jonathan. Will discovers Robin is in a relationship with a girl named Vickie, and he later asks Robin how she knew Vickie liked her romantically, to which Robin gives him some "signs" she and Vickie had used to signal romantic interest. When a Demogorgon attacks the military caravan with Hopper in it, Will telepathically witnesses the attack from the perspective of the Demogorgon and sees it head toward the Wheeler household. Will finds out that his earlier visions were from Vecna's point of view and that he can use his abilities to find Vecna's next target. He finds out that Vecna's next victim is Derek Turnbow, Holly's classmate and bully. They end up using Derek as bait to trap the Demogorgon and implant a tracker in it to get to Holly before more children are taken. The plan unravels when Derek wakes up and reveals the group's location to the Demogorgon. Will and his group are then attacked by the Demogorgon until Dustin, Steve, Nancy and Jonathan chase it into the Upside Down. Will experiences a vision of Holly trapped in Vecna's dimension along with other children. Will's group infiltrates the military base to smuggle the children out of Hawkins. Vecna and three Demogorgons come in from the Upside Down to slaughter all of the soldiers and kidnap the children. Vecna tells Will that he is going to use the children as spies, just like he did with him, then returns to the Upside Down. The Demogorgons almost kill Mike, Lucas, and Robin until Will unlocks his ability to siphon Vecna's powers through his psychic connection to him and kills all three Demogorgons by thinking of his childhood memories with Joyce, Jonathan, and Mike while recalling Robin's earlier advice. Later, Will, Lucas, Mike, Robin, and Joyce use the WSQK radio tower to electrocute a dead Demogorgon back to live, in order to allow Will to tap back into the hive mind so that he can utilize his new ability against Vecna directly. He uses this ability to save Max from Vecna, remotely snapping Vecna's leg and speaking through his body, warning Max and Holly to run. However, Vecna manages to expel Will from his mind, knocking him unconscious in the physical world. Will is now trapped in Vecna's mind prison, where he faces Vecna, who reveals that the underground tunnels introduced in season 2 were unconsciously built by Will while he slept. Vecna then uses Will as a spy and utilizes his psychic connection to Will to locate Max in the real world, in Hawkins Memorial Hospital. After being broken out of his trance by Eleven, Dustin, Nancy, Jonathan and Steve return, where they reveal the Upside Down is a wormhole, and that Vecna was keeping the children in the real alternate dimension, The Abyss. Before they embark into the Upside Down, Will comes out as gay to his family and friends, explaining that Vecna showed him visions of his failed and distant relationships with his loved ones after learning the truth. One by one, each one of his loved ones hug and express their support for him, proving these visions incorrect, and Mike later apologizes to Will for not noticing his struggle, reaffirming their friendship. In the final battle, Will telepathically connects to Vecna and discovers that a young Henry Creel was corrupted by the Mind Flayer. Realizing he is just as much of a victim as Will was, Will encourages Vecna to join them and destroy the Mind Flayer once and for all, but he refuses, claiming that he and the entity are one and the same. Will helps to cripple Vecna, allowing Eleven to impale him on a spike, and watches as Joyce delivers the killing blow and ends him once and for all. He sees Eleven seemingly sacrifice herself as the Upside Down is destroyed. Eighteen months later in the spring of 1989, Will, Dustin, Max, Lucas, and Mike graduate from Hawkins High and play a final game of Dungeons & Dragons. Mike narrates their futures, revealing that Will moves away from Hawkins and continues to become more comfortable with himself, eventually meeting a potential boyfriend. He then tells the party that Eleven has survived, and Max asks whether his theory is true. Mike replies that he doesn't know, but that he chooses to believe it, and the others pledge the same. Will and the others then emotionally leave their adventuring books behind and leave the basement.
In the final season of Stranger Things, Will Byers comes out as gay to his friends and family.[13] Prior to this canonical confirmation, viewers and critics had long speculated that Will was gay and harbored unrequited romantic feelings for his best friend, Mike Wheeler.[14][15]Stranger Things fans called the proposed relationship between the two characters "Byler."[16][17] The fourth season contained significant subtext, including a scene where Will becomes emotional after giving Mike a painting under the pretense it was from Eleven, which critics interpreted as an acknowledgment of his sexuality.[18][19] Series creators the Duffer Brothers stated these scenes were meant to show Will "relieving himself of some of that burden" and planned to continue this character arc into the final season.[20] Actor Noah Schnapp had also stated in July 2022 that he believed it was "100% clear" Will was gay and in love with Mike.[21] In January 2023, Schnapp himself came out as gay, saying he "had more in common" with the Will Byers character than he previously thought.[22]
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